SPACE UTILIZATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Recent reports on the utilization of available facilities in IHL suggest that there is much room for improvement.

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The Fund for the Advancement of Education wrote: "Particularly in the use of space classrooms, laboratories, and libraries— most colleges and universities persist in traditional and inefficient practices that waste their resources and result in unneeded construction. Studies showing excessive waste of existing space were reported in the first manual on space utilization prepared with Fund support by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers in 1955 and, again, in a brochure published in 1962 by the Educational Facilities Laboratories. Some institutions are now demonstrating that it is possible to have well-filled classrooms and laboratories throughout the day and in late afternoons, evenings, and Saturdays, and to use classrooms and laboratories during the summer without loss in quality of the educational program."

The space utilization manual referred to, reported that IHL used their classrooms and laboratories an average of 44 percent of the possible periods in a 44period week, and that student stations were used only 25 percent of the available time. The manual's senior author, John Dale Russel, of New York University, the country's leading authority in such studies, told the Committee on Higher Education in New York State in 1960, that "if classrooms were used to the greatest extent possible during the day and evening and all through the year, present classrooms could handle four times the present number of students." 17 The mentioned study for the Educational Facilities Laboratories, by the College of Education, at Michigan State University, found:

"Considered from almost any point of view, utilization of classroom and laboratory space in the colleges covered by this study is low. Classrooms are used about 18 times a week, or 40 percent of the time they could be used; laboratories about 11 times a week, or 25 percent of the time. As for student stations, in general classrooms they are used about 9 times a week, and in labs about 7 times. This is 22 and 15 percent of possible utilization on the basis of a 44-hour week No matter which way it is juggled, this leaves a lot of empty classrooms and vacant seats. Worse to say, there is little reason to suspect that other eleges of this type or any other type do much better." 18

A report under the auspices of the American Council on Education stated: "Without stopping to enumerate the studies made from Florida to California and throughout the United States regarding the utilization of existing space in our colleges and universities, it is generally agreed that we use no more than 50 percent of our rooms and 25 percent of our student stations on a 45-hour week. Tais may be a luxury we can no longer afford and one which we can hardly jramify.****

Several IHL including, for example, Brigham Young University, have demonstrated that it is possible to use academic facilities far more fully than is now the general practice. Space Utilization Analysis, a group of management consultants who have done work for several universities, government, and industry, placed the 1957-70 facility requirements in IHL at $12.7 billion under current utilization practices but estimated that with better space programing in new buildings the amount could be cut to $7.2 billion, with such practices in all (new and old) buildings to $4.3 billion.20

These reports and more could be cited-raise serious doubt whether some of the need estimates at $19 billion or at $23 billion should be accepted at face value.

The Fund for the Advancement of Education, a report for 1961-62, p. 29.

The Year-Round Campus Catches On," by Sidney Tickton, the Fund for the Advancemenf Education, 1963, p. 6.

To Build or Not To Build," Educational Facilities Laboratories, New York, 1962, p. 35. Bald B. Thompson, "Educational Alternatives," in Vital Issues in Education, American Council on Education, p. 117.

Space Programing and Physical Plant Investment in American Colleges and Universitie 1957-70." Space Utilization Analysis, Inc., New York, 1958.

98-466-63-vol. 3-4

YEAR-ROUND USE OF ACADEMIC FACILITIES

Year-round operations of IHL would sharply reduce the need for additional educational facilities. President Grayson Kirk, of Columbia University, said at the dedication of the new NEA Building in Washington:

"*** Some of our institutions with physical plants involving an investment in each case of scores of millions of dollars remain largely idle for several months each year. We should ask ourselves if it would not be better to operate these great institutions on a plan which would divide the academic year into three parts, one which would, in effect, replace the present 6-week summer school with a full-fleged summer semester.

"Since the institution would be able to serve the needs of one-third more students in a given period of years than it now can, an approach of this kind to the problem of student numbers might enable us to meet our expanding student needs without such a huge expenditure for additional plant construction." " Chancellor Edward H. Litchfield, of the University of Pittsburgh, which has been operating a trisemester plan since 1959, wrote:

"Educators and legislators have greeted it as a means of getting more efficient use of existing educational plants, which cost the same to maintain whether they are operated 8, 9, or 11 months of the year. The plan, if adopted nationwide, could reduce the $10 billion needed in the next decade for new facilities to about $6 billion."

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Dean Elmer Easton, of Rutgers University Engineering College, pointed out in a booklet, "Year Around Operation of Colleges," that a trisemester schedule would provide up to 56 percent more degrees per year, make up to 30 percent more use of instructional facilities, increase faculty salaries approximately 30 percent (p. 36).

Former U.S. Commissioner of Education, Earl J. McGrath (now executive officer of the Institute of Higher Education at Columbia Teachers College) has for several years been crusading for year-round college operation. He wrote in a recent article:

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**** If the three-term plan advocated here were put into effect, present institutions could take one-third more students than they can now.

"Consider this arithmetic: In the fall of 1962, our colleges accepted 1,037,000 entrants. In the academic year 1965-66, according to present estimates, they will be asked to accept 1,507,000. Where will they find room for the extra half-million? The best answer would be a 3-year course to increase our college capacity by one-third.

"(4) College and university plants now commonly stand idle for from a few weeks to more than 3 months in each 12. Yet while classrooms, dormitories, libraries, laboratories, and other facilities are unused for these long periods, presidents clamor for billions of dollars for new buildings. Robert Bokelman of the U.S. Office of Education estimates that between 1961 and 1975 the average annual requirement for capital expenditures will be between $1.5 and $2.2 billion. Each additional full-time student will impose a building burden of about $6,150." "To the degree that institutions can make fuller use of existing facilities by keeping them in steady use, these figures can be correspondingly reduced. The three-term plan will save taxpayers and donors millions of dollars that would otherwise be needed for new facilities under the conventional academic year." Mr. McGrath sees many other advantages in an all-year plan. He wrote: "*** A properly designed three-term academic year can provide a 20 to 30 percent increase in faculty incomes and still leave adequate time for scholarly activities and recreation

"The average student could complete the requirements for the degree in something less than 3 calendar years rather than 4 * * *. The economic advantages to the student would be great since he would pay less for his education while in progress and enter gainful employment a year earlier."

A recent booklet by the Fund for the Advancement of Education listed "40 institutions which have established formal plans for operating their campuses

Grayson Kirk, "Looking Ahead in Education," Vital Speeches, Mar. 1, 1959.

22 Edward H. Litchfield, "The Trimesteh System," in a symposium, "Colleges Can Operate All Year," in Saturday Review, Dec. 15, 1962.

Earl J. McGrath, "Plea for the Year-Round College," the New York Times magazine. Apr. 28, 1963.

on a year-round basis. All permit the student who desires to do so to earn his B.A. degree in 3 rather than in the usual 4 calendar years *** without requiring him to carry more than a 'normal' full-time course load." " It suggested the plan as an alternative to constructing facilities which were listed as "required" in some of the recent facility need surveys. All of those estimates were based on the traditional 4-year undergraduate study on a two-semester or three-quarter basis.

How can IHL be persuaded to adopt a trisemester or four-quarter plan? Mr. McGrath in his mentioned article wrote "that it is as hard to change an educational practice as to move a graveyard." It appears that only by force of necessity can academic institutions (and most others) be brought about to change long established practices and habits. If Federal funds were made available to them, most would keep building without major improvement in space utilization practices or going over to all-year operation.

OPERATING INEFFICIENCIES

The effectiveness with which available resources are being used, whether for facilities or for current operations, has, of course, a major bearing on the magnitude of the need for additional funds. In its report "Better Utilization of College Teaching Resources," the Fund for the Advancement of Education suggested four "handles" to increase efficiency: place greater responsibility on students for their education, rearrange course structures, discover new resources both in teaching and in performance of duties ordinarily expected of the teacher, and increase the institutional reach of IHL. It listed several innovations by individual institutions which ought to be more widely applied.

The faculty-student ratio has been falling in recent decades and is far lower than in European universities." Hundreds of studies and experiments have failed to show an advantage of small classes over large or of low faculty workloads. "All that is accomplished by low ratios is to enable the teacher to communicate his mediocrity in an intimate surrounding" commented the late President Charles Johnson, of Fisk University. An American Council on Education report, "Faculty Workload," summarized: "To the best knowledge of the author, John Hicks, of Purdue University, no objective study has ever been made of the relationship between quality of faculty performance and faculty workload" (P4). A course by an outstanding teacher once put on film, such as the famous White physics course, can be taught to thousands at a fraction of the cost of live

instruction.

Many IHL feel obliged to keep spoonfeeding their students because high schools neither trained them adequately in the essential skills nor taught them study habits. This could be corrected by insisting on higher standards of admission and continued academic standing. An Office of Education booklet, Quest for Quality," reported: "The data from the present experimentation in independent study seem clear on this point: Students are able to learn as well with much less class time than we have been accustomed to require of them" (p. 9).

Beardsley Ruml and Donald Morrison (both since deceased) proposed in their book, "Memo to a College Trustee," prepared for the Fund for the Advancement of Education, to trim the curriculum of excess content and to double the number of students per faculty member to about 20. This would enable the IHL to double salaries without additional funds. The authors concluded that "new money is not needed in anything like the amounts presently estimated. Many of the necessary funds are already at the disposal of the college or can be Lade so, but they are being dissipated through wastes in curriculum, wastes in method of instruction, wastes in administration, and in the property and plant" (pp. 9 and 10).

Quality in education does not depend on the student-faculty ratio but on the establishment and maintenance of scholarly standards in higher education and suthient differntiation in secondary curricula to prepare all children for the life that awaits them and for which nature endowed them. Many IHL have in rerent years raised their admission requirements but too many still are open to all

"Tickton, op. cit., p. 6.

14 times, the faculty 5.4 times. One recent computation: Between 1919-20 and 1955-56 the student body multiplied Seymour Harris, "Higher Education: Resources and

Paner," McGraw-Hill, 1962, p. 544.

who can flash a high school diploma-which is commonly awarded for 12 years of faithful residence.

Most American secondary schools, a wonderment and a mystery to the rest of the world, have not yet found a way toward an education which challenges the academically talented, educates the great majority "in the middle" for their civic and occupational tasks, and trains those of low intelligence in the type of work which they have the capacity to perform. S. 580 offers no solution to this problem.

We have stretched the process of formal schooling to more years than any other country in the world, with unsatisfactory results on both ends of the ability scale. It may well be that greater differentiation at the secondary level, between academic and vocational high schools, and a general tightening up of the process are better answers than a further stretching out.

In a recent book, "The Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the United States" (1962), Fritz Machlup, professor of economics at Princeton University (who is now serving as president of the American Association of University Professors), proposed to shorten education from first grade through college from the present 16 to 12 or 13 years. "A system of accelerated schooling is at the same time more effective and less costly. This is one of the rare instances where we really can 'get more for less.' The proposed acceleration of the school program can permit an acceleration of the economic growth of the Nation that could not be attained in any other way. For we would not only save several million man-years annually now wasted in semi-idleness at school, but also several million man-years wasted in the unemployment of those unemployable because of inadequate schooling."

Without necessarily taking a stand of any of the mentioned methods of stretching the educational dollar, I feel that some of the estimates of huge financial needs of IHL should be considered in the light of possible improvements in efficiency. But such changes will take place only under considerable pressure and are likely to be rejected if sufficient funds are made available to carry on in the traditional way.

THE OUTLOOK FOR IHL CONSTRUCTION AND FINANCES

In the early and mid-1950's when the public schools faced a 40 to 50 percent enrollment jump, it was suggested that school funds ought to be raised by 100 percent which, it was held, was far beyond the capacity of State and local governments to accomplish. The White House Conference on Education in 1955 concluded "that within the next decade the dollars spent on education in this Nation should be approximately doubled." As it turned out, school funds from State and local sources doubled within the succeeding 7 years and have been rising at a decennial rate of over 150 percent.

I pointed out earlier that according to presently available projections, educational enrollment, in total as well as at every level, will grow at a slower rate during the balance of the 1960's than it has since the mid-1950's. This suggests that school and college support will still need to be boosted but not at as rapid a rate as it actually advanced over the past 10 years. So, the outlook for adequate financing of education is bright unless the national economy takes a nosedive or turns sluggish.

Well-informed observers have expressed the opinion that planned expansion of higher educational facilities will meet requirements. Gene R. Hawes, author of "The New American Guide to College," after conducting a survey of all IHL, so asserted in an article, "The College Shortage is a Myth":26 "I can now re port that, if present expansion plans are realized, there will be room in college-room for all of our children who seriously want to go through the 1960's."

State funds for higher education tripled between 1950 and 1960. No later financial statistics are available from the Office of Education, but according to the Bureau of the Census, State expenditures for higher education increased 27 percent between 1960 and 1962. If that rate continued, State support would triple during the 1960's. Since enrollment and needs-if not necessarily the

20 This Week magazine, Nov. 4, 1962.

Bureau of the Census, "Compendium of State Government Finances in 1962," 1963.

demands of the elementary and secondary schools will rise only half as fast in the 1960's as they did in the 1950's, the States will be able to allocate a larger share of their revenues to high education. Several recent analytical studies have concluded that State support of IHL will keep climbing steeply and meet requirements throughout the 1960's.28

Tuition income tripled during the 1950's. Fees in State institutions are still indefensibly low-the national average in 1961-62 was $185-and could be very substantially boosted, with part of the added funds set aside for scholarship purposes. Most students in public IHL spend more on cigarettes and alcohol, let alone cars, than on tuition. The Los Angeles Times reported on September 19, 1961, that on the opening day of Los Angeles State College-which charges $76 in fees and enrolls 14,000 students-7,000 cars tried to park there. If half the students can afford to drive a car, can they not afford to pay more than $76 for their education? (Unless they feel that a car is more important and worth more than the education they are to receive.)

The low tuition policy not only restricts the revenues of public institutions, it also cuts into the potential and jeopardizes the very existence of private colleges. Fortner University of Chicago Chancellor Lawrence A. Kimpton was quoted as saying: "To put it in the crassest terms possible, it is hard to market a product when down the street somebody is giving it away." Private IHL would find it much easier to maintain an adequate fee schedule if public IHL raised their own to more reasonable levels. This could be done without inflicting hardship, by establishing a system of income tax credits such as I suggested earlier. Also, the availability of student loans on reasonable terms is expanding, and guarantee programs under the auspices of State governments and of the united student aid funds, which are rapidly growing and now cover most States, help to make students eligible for long-term loans who might otherwise have difficulty borrowing for lack of a credit rating or a collateral.

Private donations also tripled between 1950 and 1960 and can be expected to keep rising, particularly if some recognition, such as tax credits, were extended. Several competent studies have placed the budgetary needs of IHL in 1970 at $10 billion. An analysis and appraisal of past and present trends suggest that revenues are likely to exceed that amount even without the addition of new Federal grant-in-aid programs.

FEDERAL AID TO EDUCATION AND THE "CLASS STRUGGLE"

It has recently been asserted, as was mentioned at this hearing 2 weeks ago, that the Federal aid-to-education controversy is really "a struggle between people with wealth and people with kids," It was claimed that Federal taxes are largely paid by the rich, State and local taxes by the poor, and that objection to Federal grants is an attempt by rich people to shift their responsibilities to the рент

This line of argument exaggerates out of proportion the difference in location of the burden between Federal. State and local taxation, is based on a misunderstanding of tax incidence, and seems to be derived from Marxist dialectic materialism. It apparently assumes that the corporate income tax is wholly lerne by the stockholders. If it were, stockholders would, after Federal corporate and individual income taxes, have left between a maximum of 38.4 percent and a minimum of 4.3 percent of the profits-less a few percentage points for State and local corporate and personal income taxes. If that were the case, the American economy would long since have broken down. But there is ample evidence that much or most of the corporate tax is in the long run shifted to consumers in the form of prices. After-tax earnings on which net worth were maintained over a period during which the corporate tax rate quadrupled. That most of the personal income tax rests on the rich was true until a generahon ago. But it no longer is since it turned from a class tax into a mass tax. The

B F. Stiger and Thomas R. Beard. "State Support of Higher Education," "Proceeds of the 55th Annual Conference on Taxation," National Tax Association, 1963 (in peat: M. M. Chambers, "Where Will the Money Come From?" Journal of Higher Edution, May 1960.

Financing Higher Education 1960-70," edited by Dexter M. Keezer, McGraw-Hill, New York 1959; Seymour Harris, at pp. 73-75, Robert D. Calkins, at pp. 195 ff. Also: Seymour Harris, "Higher Education: Resources and Finance," McGraw-Hill, New York, 12, p 21.